The Myth of The Level Playing Field
~~The Myth of the Level Playing Field~~
Emotions are running high after explosive blog posts by Christina regarding possible corruption in the LuLaRoe warehouse.
But it isn’t just the allegations themselves that are causing all the feels. None of us know exactly what is true and what isn’t true about that story.
What cuts to the core for many past and present concepts is that this is just further confirmation that they were sold a lie: the myth of the level playing field.
The concept of LuLaRoe is a relatively sound one. Stylish, comfortable, clothing that fits a wide range of body types. The ever-changing patterns generate excitement.
Every consultant will have something different, so every consultant will have an equal chance of success. All you have to do is work hard and trust and believe and set your goals high.
It all sounded so good, and so many women seem to be living the dream.
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Now with some critical thinking, it doesn’t take long to realize that the playing field would never be level because life isn’t level.
With any pyramid-shaped MLM company, those who get in early have an advantage because they are able to build bigger downlines and get more commissions.
In theory, the high startup cost should have regulated growth and limited onboarding to those with the means and skills to actually run a small business. The reality is that from the top down, women were encouraged to make risky financial decisions in order onboard, and when things didn’t go well, they were always told that going further into debt was the solution. Women who entered the business with more money, have always had an unfair advantage.
Although selling LLR is sold as something ANYone can do, that simply isn’t true. Not everyone has the people skills to deal with customers. Not everyone has what it takes to sell via live video. Not everyone has the family situation to be able to spend the uninterrupted time it takes to do everything it takes to sell.
LLR denies market saturation could ever be a problem because everyone has different prints, but the reality is that it is. People are only going to host or attend so many in-home parties in a certain period of time.
But these are things that are generally true of most MLMs. I’m not exactly breaking new ground here.
So what’s different about LLR?
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What should have worked in theory, is not working out in real life. Yes, tastes vary. One person’s unicorn is another person’s donkey. But so many of their prints only appeal to a very small number of people because the vast majority of people think they are ugly af.
LLR refuses to admit this is a problem. Rather than collect feedback from their consultants about what sells and what doesn’t sell, they have the attitude that consultants should be convincing their customers that these ugly prints ARE awesome, and if that doesn’t work, they need to find new customers.
And then the quality went to shit. LLR clothing is not insanely expensive, but it is not cheap. You can buy similar items elsewhere for much less money. The legging blowouts have been discussed to death and are now going to be litigated to death. But the ridiculous things that never should have gotten past quality control have also hurt consultants, and LLR won’t even damage them out. How many Amelias have you seen with crooked stripes? Consultants can’t get a refund for those, they are told to add a wide belt or throw a knotted Perfect T over them.
And then we get into the warehouse issues. Shipments are frequently shorted items or entire shipments go missing. Resolving these issues is sometimes very difficult, I have personally seen screenshots from consultants who put in support tickets for their missing items only to have them repeatedly closed without resolution. Sometimes they have been able to get relief via a credit card chargeback, other times they just give up.
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So now we come to our tale of woe of a former consultant who claims she bribed her way to the top? Or did she make it up? Or is she lying about lying? Why is this outrageous story so plausible?
Because for many, it doesn’t really matter if the exact details are true. It confirms their suspicions that they will never have a level playing field.
It’s clear that for whatever reason, there are those that are in favor with the powers that be. Friends and family of the founders. Consultants who got in early and stayed faithful. Time after time consultants have watched as those in favor somehow manage to receive a fairly high percentage of sellable prints, and are able to order sold out items, while more and more the average Joe consultants are receiving tons of duplicates, hideous prints, and old stock that has been returned by past consultants, and are having a difficult time getting resolution for shorted orders.
That doesn’t mean that those in favor got there by doing anything shady. But at the end of the day, the idea that anyone can succeed at LuLaRoe is increasingly being exposed as a myth.
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There are many consultants who have achieved success and happiness through nothing but hard work and sometimes a pinch of truly random good luck. I wish those consultants nothing but the best.
But I hope they can pause for a second, take a deep breath, and remember to be kind to those consultants on the way out.
I’m sure there were a few consultants who did not succeed because they did not or were unable to put enough work in. Remember, LLR Home Office used to give out cards that said, “Want to earn full-time income for part-time work? Ask me how!”. So perhaps you can excuse those who didn’t get into this expecting to put in 60+ hours per week.
There are also some consultants who never should have started. They borrowed money they should not have. They lacked the business acumen or the people skills or whatever to succeed. Their predatory upline fed them lies in order to make commissions off their wholesale orders, then spit them out when they needed support.
And there are consultants who did everything right, busted their asses and followed all the rules, and never had any chance because the playing field was too tilted against them. They were too late to the party and their social circles were already burned out on the product. They received too many donkeys and defectivebutnotdefectiveenoughforllr merchandise. Their area is too saturated. They are getting burned on chargebacks. Whatever.
You’ll have to forgive them for not wanting to return their merchandise to LLR. The same warehouse that can’t count outgoing orders properly, also can’t count incoming returns properly. If they decide not to accept any of your items, you don’t get them back, you are just out product and money.
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There is a bubble. It needs to pop. If you want to stay with LLR and make it work, you have to ride it out. The consultants leaving are not the problem. The flood of GOOB sales will ease eventually.
Please stop buying into the lie that the problems are with other consultants. The consultants are not the problem. LuLaRoe’s incestuous culture, where connections matter over competencies, where the favored ones can get away with nearly anything, where time and time again serious problems are ignored. This is the problem.
Consultants who want to stay in, stop being afraid of LuLaRoe. Band together and speak up. Demand a forum to give your feedback to LuLaRoe. Demand an independent security firm be hired to fix the server flaws that keep causing both your and your customers’ credit cards to be compromised. Demand better prints. Demand better quality. Demand to be able to order new merchandise with any credit card you want. Demand that LuLaRoe hire management with the competencies needed to successfully run a billion dollar business. They can throw out any one consultant, but they cannot throw out all of you.
Perhaps it’s too late for change. Perhaps they are too far down the death spiral of pending litigation and overdue taxes and government investigations.
But please, stop attacking the women who never had a chance. The playing field was never level.